Indigenous policing chiefs want funding gaps closed, and services considered essential

The former head of the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association and chief of policing in Kahnawake would like 2022 to be the last year his service isn't considered essential and that his officers are not paid on par with those working in Montreal, Quebec City, and elsewhere in the province.

Kahnawake Peacekeeper Chief Dwayne Zacharie said the wage gaps have to close, and the federal and provincial governments need to acknowledge that officers in Indigenous territories do the same job as those in Canadian municipalities and deserve to be treated as such.

"When First Nations communities have higher rates of violence, higher rates of domestic violence, drug abuse, suicides, all of these areas are much higher than the national average, yet First Nations policing is funded at a much lower level," he said from the Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) community south of Montreal.

Zacharie spoke to CTV News as Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino expects a bill on Indigenous policing to be introduced within the next year.

In 2022, the Department of Public Safety evaluated the current First Nations and Inuit policing program. It found that it is chronically underfunded by the federal and provincial governments, which hinders the ability of Indigenous communities to develop and implement their own self-sufficient police services.

There are currently 36 First Nations and Inuit-run police services in Canada. Most are located in Quebec and Ontario.

HALF THE PAY, SAME JOB

In Quebec, the funding disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous police forces is particularly stark.

The 2019 Viens Commission heard from witnesses that said underfunding results in salaries that are 40-50 per cent lower for Indigenous officers than those in Quebec municipalities.

• WATCH: Scathing report into Indigenous services

"Many directors of Indigenous police forces confirmed that their staff are underpaid, and that salary conditions hamper both recruitment and retention," the report says.

A Dec. 15 Quebec Court of Appeals decision found in favour of the Pekuakamiulnuatsh Takuhikan First Nation and noted that "the underfunding of Indigenous police services has been a major and long-documented problem."

Justice Marie-France Bich ordered Quebec and Canada to pay the community in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region $1.6 million plus interest and legal fees to make up the deficit it accumulated between 2013 and 2017.

Several Indigenous representatives told the Viens Commission that their police services had accumulated deficits in the millions due to underfunding.

"We've been paying out of our own pockets for years. I can say just within maybe five years, we accumulated deficits of over $1.2M," said Listuguj Mi'gmaq Band Council chief Lloyd Alcon. "That's coming out of money that we could have put into our communities for other things, which there are… which we are lacking."

Ekuanitshit (Minigan) and Kanesatake are two communities that dismantled their police forces and are now patrolled by the SQ.

The funding gap is additionally frustrating for Zacharie, who sees the added workload his officers are tasked with patrolling the community on Montreal's South Shore.

He said hundreds of thousands of people drive through Kahnawake via the Honore-Mercier Bridge each day onto one of the three highways running across the territory. Those highways also are dotted with restaurants, golf courses, poker houses and other shops that non-community members frequent regularly.

"The Kahnawake Peacekeepers are responsible for their safety and security as well, and that impacts the service that we provide to our community; it impacts our resources," said Zacharie. "That's not something that I think our funding partners, the feds and the provinces, really look at. They don't have a funding formula to address those needs."

The underfunding, the court decision adds, also impacts the infrastructure and equipment police use.

"The vast majority of police services in Indigenous communities are operating with outdated or inadequate equipment - vehicles, body armour and technology - which makes their work very difficult," the decision said.

Former Mashteuiatsh police director Simon Vanier testified in court that his force did not have a central 911 dispatch, radar guns to monitor speeders or a breathalyzer.

A January Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision also found that Canada is discriminating against Indigenous communities by inadequately funding the Mashteuiatsh police service for years.

"We have to stop denying it, there is systemic racism towards First Nations and governments must act to stop it," said Chief Gilbert Dominique.

Indigenous police services are funded by a 52-48 per cent split between the federal and provincial governments.

Zacharie said the two governments are not always on time with their payments, which are expected at the start of the fiscal year (April 1).

This leads to some communities taking loans or lines of credit out to make their payroll and other expenses while waiting for money to arrive.

"So if you're already underfunded and then you have to take out a loan, then you have to pay out interest on the loan, then you're 52-48 split which is technically 100 per cent is not the bank rate," said Zacharie. "So you're actually operating at less than 100 per cent of what you're receiving."

The funding split also means provincial and federal governments have to agree if they want to increase budgets.

Former Quebec Native Affairs Minister Geoffrey Kelley recalled times when his Liberal government considered increasing budgets but could not do so as Stephen Harper's federal Conservative government did not agree.

Additional frustrating for Zacharie and others is the fact that policy has been on the books for over three decades, saying all policing services should be treated equally.

"To provide First Nations communities with on-reserve policing services equal in quality to those provided in non-First Nations communities," says the 1991 federal First Nations Policing Policy.

Those policing these communities, however, have found the quality is not equal, and that underfunding is a major cause of this inequality.

IS POLICING AN ESSENTIAL SERVICE?

At the 2022 Assembly of First Nations annual general assembly in Vancouver, Zacharie and Tsuut'ina Nation Police Service Chief Keith Blake called on Canada to create legislation defining police services on territories as an essential service.

Currently, policing services are funded as a program, with each body having to renegotiate agreements when the term ends individually.

"Because we're a program, we have to justify our existence, and we only exist for as long as we sign our policing agreement," said Zacharie. "It makes it extremely difficult for First Nations policing services to retain officers. Nobody really wants to come to work somewhere where they don't know year after year whether they're going to continue to exist."

Zacharie said Quebec is a particularly erratic case, with each of the around two-dozen police services needing to negotiate funding arrangements by the end of the fiscal year. He added that some with shorter terms are days away from their service ceasing to exist and thus need to make last-minute concessions to ensure funding arrives.

"It's the most difficult province to kind of get a grasp of because every First Nations police service is in a different place," he said. "In Quebec, there's no rhyme or reason as to how First Nations services are funded, and then how their officers are paid."

Kelley recalled times when he and the public security minister would go through a stack of policing agreement files that were being renewed every year. He said his Liberal government was able to extend contracts to three years but that switching the designation to essential services is a no-brainer.

"It's well overdue," said Kelley.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in 2020 that his government would work with the Assembly of First Nations to make Indigenous police services essential services.

The "Engaging on Federal First Nations Police Services Legislation - Discussion Guide" was released in June and includes a section on making this change.

Zacharie said Indigenous policing is "on the cusp" of being recognized as an essential service, something that has taken far too long in his opinion.

"I definitely would like to see things move a lot quicker," said Zacharie.

Once that happens, he said, Indigenous policing services can start building an idea of what policing in communities will look like in the future.  

With files from the Canadian Press.